I'm Busy Reading....

[clvrlad]

thats why less is more
letting the audience create what they want is much more spectacular than anything the author could be bothered to come up with...
ive used a similar tactic in rpg's i just produced some fairly random events all tied in by a specific group being involved and listened to the guess work of my victims err players...

[giraffe]

I don't just see the book happening, I work out how I would stage it as a film. I have done since I was about 16. Perhaps I should have gone for a career in film direction or something.

[Bunnylump]

I have to read REALLY slowly, because I need to take in and savour every word of a good book. I dont' read much as a consequence, I also need total silence (which I NEVER get ) in order to concentrate. You can imagine how long it took me to read things like Titus Groan* and the Lord of the Rings, can't you?

*That book has an UNBELIEVABLE amount of description in it. The pace is consequently very slow, but the detail is wonderful. Considering I read this once, about 2 years ago, I could still describe the characters to you in MINUTE detail. For someone who can't remember what she did 2 minutes ago, that's pretty good!!

Oh, and Maisie, I know what you mean about "Chic lit", what a dreadful load of hogwash, but I have to finish things I start too, even if they are driving me demented. Bit like Scurra's puzzles.

[clvrlad]

well to change it to a more high brow topic

ive been reading all star batman & robin
the re imagining by frank miller and jim lee
i like
big time
love the bit where they've painted an entire room yellow including themselves just so hal jorden cant push them around (yes batman still knows everything)

[katsmom]

If you all promise not to laugh (Scurra!) I'll tell you that I just finished reading Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. Yes, I know I'm a bit old for that, but for some reason I never got around to it. Saw it in the book store the other day and laughed like crazy all the way through.

Being one of those people with 3 or 4 books on the go, I also just finished reading Robin Maxwell's Madame DaVinci, which for what it is was a good book.

Rules, Patterns and Words by Dave Willis has been an eyeopener as far as teaching grammar goes.

And of course, I have a copy of Dan Brown's newest on my night stand. The Davinci Code I read before it was hot, and I have to say I was sorely disappointed. Sierra Games made a computer game back in the mid 1990's called Gabriel Knight a fun game that had lots of mystery and killing of bad "things" in it. Go play the game-don't bother with the book. Everything in that book is in that game. I have often wondered if Dan Brown played the game before he wrote that book! The book follows the game very closely. Until the end that is, and that is where Angels and Deamons takes over. Just plain sad!

[clvrlad]

ahh you understand about 42 now...

[giraffe]

I had to remember the number 42 yesterday and that was what I thought of!

[Scurra]

If you all promise not to laugh (Scurra!) I'll tell you that I just finished reading Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. Yes, I know I'm a bit old for that,

You're never too old for Hitchhiker's. It's one of those books (like Alice in Wonderland) that turns out to contain new jokes every time your read it.

[SparkOut]

I'd go so far as to say that I don't believe it (h2g2) was ever intended for "a young audience" - merely anyone who appreciates the oddball humour, whatever the age. (You can appreciate Alice on many levels, but it's firmly in the children's category first.)

[MBH]

Oddly enough, I don't think I ever read Adams. Hitchhikers hit radio plays, tv shows, even before the film that I think it's something I've 'absorbed' (like Monty Python) without ever seeing the original but because everyone around quotes him.

I even know what we would end up with if we used Engorgio on the Jester enough that he was of similar dimentions to Mercury

[Bunnylump]

I re read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy about a year ago. It was brilliant and I laughed a lot. His humour is almost identical to my son's. Weird and wonderful.

[Scurra]

I'm in the middle of a PG Wodehouse binge. Douglas Adams has a theory about Bach which I think applies to Wodehouse as well - no one person could possibly have produced such a vast and yet nigh-on perfect body of work in one lifetime, and he reckons that it's leaked in from another universe...

He wrote about 100 books, and every single line in a Wodehouse novel feels exactly as though he just sat down and "dashed it off" even though he probably spent hours agonising over it. There's a laugh on almost every page and his plot construction is immaculate. Sure the setting is dated, but then Austen and Dickens are hardly cutting edge. It is amusingly disconcerting to have characters reminisce about the wild time they had in the "nineties" - and realise that they mean the eighteen nineties though!

How can you not admire a line like: "Lord Tilbury, with the geniality of a trapped wolf, admitted to being in robust health."

[MBH]

Quote from the radio today:

It's 30 years since Radio 4 first broadcast Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Errrr...

You lot may have kids to remind you about age, but certain things still give me a nudge


Anyway - total change in my reading again (probably missed a couple of changes out)

In the car: Prisoner of the Daleks by Trevor Baxendale

In the house: The Malice Box by Martin Langfield {loaned to me}

On the net: The Eighth Weasley by Fyre

Regarding the last one - those that don't like 'fan fiction' probably frown, wince, and curl up their toes at 'crossovers'..... but..... what if Ginny's lost twin sister HAD spent her life growing up at the Hellmouth and was known to everyone as Willow?

Since I'm a fan of both sets of characters, I'm having great fun with this one

[maisie ladybird]

Have just started to read Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry, a few chapters in it refers to a Bestiary. It would probably just have passed me straight by without a second thought if it had not been for doing these puzzles.

[MBH]

Thought I'd better update this before i get my books passed back to the nearest library. Since I've been drifting off to sleep and not up to doing much (not even puzzles) I've been ploughing through cheap fiction instead.

In no particular order:

Maximum Ride (The Final Warning) - James Patterson. Teenage series about 98% human 2% bird DNA kids - yes.... kids with wings. Tackling the subject of Global Warming this time (while trying to stay alive from bad-guys attacking them).

Bond 007: Never Dream of Dying - Raymond Bonson. Not greatly impressed. Looks like the book of a Bond film that doesn't really come across in the excitement, character, or basic believability stakes. Disapointed

Prom Nights from Hell - compilation that includes Kim Harrison. Nice collection of shorts all based around Prom Night (surprise, surprise).

Deadstock - Jeffery Thomas. Part of the 'Punktown' series (which I'd never heard of). Futuristic detective / gang / strange Japanese monster type story. Doesn't encourage me to look for the others in the series, but good enough as a one-off.

Blood Pact - Tanya Huff. Another series I'm working through. Visually impared detective plus police partner and vampire partner (eternal triangle). The past books dealt with Vamps, Werewolves, and a Mummy - now the scientists bringing bodies back to life get their turn. Dramatic ending.

Without Consent - Kathryn Fox. Detective story from the point of view of a forensic physician. Serial sexual assault and murder investigated and offenders tracked down with a wide selection of red herrings (the ones they give you at the beginning, plus others scattered along the way). Absorbing and well written.

Resurrecting Ravana - a Buffy the Vampire Slayer novel. Indian gods looking to return and turn Earth into their own private Hell.

I'm now reading the 7th Torchwood novel - Pack Animals (Torchwood) by Peter Anghelides. As always the characterizaton of the TV characters comes over very well. Only started this one yesterday.

[Bunnylump]

You've read all those books? Flipping heck, that would have taken me about 6 months...

Hope you're feeling better...

[Scurra]

I'm not knocking the books that MBH has listed, but to be fair not many of them are exactly Proust, are they?

[Bunnylump]

If I was reading Proust I'd take about 6 years...

[MBH]

We've discussed my reading before - I know EXACTLY what sort of books I use to escape the real world:

I've been ploughing through cheap fiction instead.

Are Proust's stories any better (and did you spot he's an anagram of Sprouts? I like sprouts )

[Bunnylump]

Think that sums Proust up nicely.